The Way We Were
by Survivor88
Summary: Miles from Chicago but within its state borders another of the six decides itis time to go back home... Ch.3 is up... R
1. Remember When

Perhaps a little wishful thinking since I watched my new ER Season Three DVD. 

I don't own anything, sadly.

Little tidbit: I nixed _Working to Make It Work_ mainly because of the dismal amount of reviews so I decided, instead, to make this fic a multi-chapter and I hope you enjoy it. I made revisions and hopefully the amount of reviews will be better.

Spoilers for various episodes...

ENJOY!

Year: 2010

* * *

The day had been long and hard and exhausting. They were thankful for the comfortable couch and the quiet darkness that came from late night.

Their girls were in bed, sleeping peaceful ten-year old girl dreams...

"What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"Rowan and I had a case today, a husband was dying of metastatic brain cancer, his wife and their baby girl watched him until he passed away four hours later. I remember he whispered, 'I love you and I'll always be with you.' It was just before his eyes slid in to the back of his head and he took a last short breath."

She swiped at a tear that had fallen down her cheek.

He knew what she was thinking.

He kissed her hair and drew her body closer against his chest, "I love you."

"I love you too, Doug."

Oddly, whenever the end of May rolled around since 2002, a case would come in and replicate the way their best friend had passed on. Carol rationalized that perhaps it was a sad, but effective way from the Powers that be, to make certain they never forgot Mark.

It never failed to work.

"Do you wonder what the ER must be like without him? And who's who now?"

Doug nodded silently.

Both doctors felt a stabbing guilt whenever Mark entered their thoughts or conversations.

"I wonder if Elizabeth, Carter, or anyone else hold a grudge against us for not making it to the funeral."

"I hope not... We had a serious situation to contend with, I'd hope they would love and know us enough to understand..."

Now Carol nodded, "if we had called and told them about it." Carol whispered full of remorse...

* * *

What had kept them from the funeral was a crisis no parent should ever have to go through: Kate and Tess, only two years old at the time, had vanished from Carol's sight just before they were to leave for the airport. The search of the house and the property yielded nothing. Doug called the police while Carol ran to the neighbors and continued to shout for her girls. Approximately 13 hours later, in the early hours of the morning the day of the funeral the twin girls were found by two police officers fifteen miles from the Ross home. They were tired and crying sitting in the woods clinging to each other calling for their parents. Neither toddler could give a clear, accurate answer to what had happened.

Carol and Doug were thanking God they had their girls home and safe, neither injured nor abused. The abduction, everyone assumed, had made both parents neurotic about Kate and Tess's whereabouts at all times.

The twins were not severely tainted by the experience, too young to remember much except being frightened to death.

Years later they still hadn't called anyone in Chicago because of guilt, but were ever so slowly relinquishing their very protective hold on Kate and Tess.

* * *

"It's been quite a long time since we looked through this," Doug murmured. 

In front of him and Carol was an old scrapbook/photo album filled with memories of their years in Chicago, even after Doug left.

Carol had dug it out of their closet when she had gotten home earlier...

"Oh my gosh, do remember Carter's first day and how calm Mark was in the midst of being chief resident!" Carol laughed picturing Carter's figurative green complexion after his first major trauma and then Mark going out to perk the kid up.

"He sure was good with the rookies."

Carol agreed. She turned the page randomly. Doug put his hand down to stop her.

"I remember this picture, Susan took it after all the patients had been taken care of." The photo was of Carter trying to crack open the cast Susan and Mark had plastered on to his leg when he was sleeping; naturally a multi-victim trauma had come in and he'd had to go around the hole night with it treating patients.

As the pages were turned pictures of Mark and Doug golfing and playing basketball in the Bay showed up.

Doug grinned sadly, nostalgia working in full force on both adults.

Carol stopped again at a photo of an untriumphant but relieved Mark and herself, it was just after he settled the ruling in the O'Brien malpractice suit.

Another of Mark and Carol at her would-have-been-but-wasn't wedding to John Taglieri.

The fantastic four, as Carol fondly thought of herself, Doug, Susan, and Mark.

"Mark was a great dad too..." Carol mumbled, thinking about Rachel and how Ella wouldn't know her dad.

So many memories existed in the book and in their souls.

"I remember how rough it was after he got beaten up, it sort of lost it for awhile", Doug recalled. Those weeks seemed just as hard, if not harder, than when Mark and Jen split and his life was flipped upside down.

Carol laughed everyone now and then when a disgruntled Kerry was arguing with an equally annoyed Mark.

"I'm so glad those two got together, they were perfect for each other", Carol said smiling when she found the photo of Mark and Elizabeth at their wedding.

The reason they hadn't made it to that was because Carol and Doug had changed addresses and hadn't gotten around to calling their friends back East.

Near the end a picture surfaced of Carol and Mark, it was taken just after she'd left the hospital with the twins...

"He was so great during all that time. I love him so much still, he was like the dad and the brother I never had. I'll never forget how great a friend he was..." Carol again wiped away several stray tears.

Through the macho guy exterior Doug cried too. He was thankful to his best friend, his brother, for everything the guy ever did for him.

Mark put his ass on the line for Doug repeatedly and then was there for him when Doug decided to move on and, indirectly, was there for him for Carol.

"I love him too."

Closing the book, emotionally tired, Doug and Carol maneuvered so that they were wrapped in each others embrace.

"I... I have an idea..."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Tickets are cheapest at this crazy hour."

Doug grinned.

Carol grinned.

"Let's do it..."

* * *

I'd love to know what you think so please don't hesitate... :- D - Jill


	2. What I Need To Do

Late in to the very early morning, when the clinic is monitored by the night staff and unless there is a crisis he lies in bed with his memories, wide awake.

She sleeps soundly beside him never knowing that he is plagued with insomnia or that he now realizes what he gave up for her, even though she never asked him to.

'I wonder...'

He let's his mind drift aimlessly over the last 20 years.

Those years of school, the tumultous years if residency, his departure of that life, his return, and now his departure once more.

All of the clinic patients, too many to count, tumble through his mind namelessly.

What stands out from all these thoughts is the patients he cared for in that other life and those that he work alongside.

'What the hell am I doing?'

This question he has asked himself for years.

At the time he lefthe thought he was making the right decision for himself, but really it was a rash attempt to try and make their life work, when it hadn't really worked before.

Off of his nightstand come's a picture.

Five people who guided him and supported him and did their damnedest to get him through some of the most difficult times of his adult life...

Over the years they had all dispersed to other areas of the country, one had died, and one had come back.

Slipping out of bed, on a whim he went to his laptop and brought up the site he'd been going to for nights on end but could never make a decision, for fear of hurting her. What he now realized was that he was, once more, hurting himself.

Carefully, he selected the airline, the seating class, and used his personal information and credit card to fill in the blanks before printing out a confirmation slip and returning to bed.

The morning would bring much change...

* * *

I know it's short but it's what I was kind of aiming for. Please review with any and all comments or criticisms... :) 


	3. Man With A Memory

_"You have friends Peter ... and you need to stop standing in the hall."_

There he was again though, standing in the hall looking in to the PICU in Schaumburg, Illinois.

And here he still hadn't solidified any relationships except for his marriage to Cleo.

This time it wasn't his infant son lying in the NICU at Cook County General Hospital, but his teenage son lying in the pediatric ICU surrounded by machines helping him to breath yet again.

And it wasn't his ex-girlfriend Carla, but his wife and daughter who were inside keeping vigil at Reese's bedside.

Yet he still felt the same guilt and déjà vu.

Now he also knew how Mark and Elizabeth must have felt...

Mark...

Peter could mentally picture his late friend and colleagues face ... the glasses and bald head and the smile that either put patients at ease or the frown that dissolved families to tears.

And suddenly, standing there looking at his son in the hospital years later a flood of memories came rushing through his head:

Carter-both his faults and his strengths and how far he'd come from his naive days as a medical student.

Susan-Her feuds with his consults and her issues with her sister and her niece.

Doug-His cowboy approach to medicine, as it was rumored to be referred to, but the way the pediatrician cared so deeply about his young patients. Peter almost wished Doug was the one treating Reese.

Mark-His positions of authority and his years of playing referee between Peter and the ER staff. And later the man's own difficulty with his elder daughter. And in the end his slow slip from life.

Carol-Her relationship with Doug was what he remember most about the nurse and what had happened to her 16 years before. And her own twin daughters birth.

Peter was desperately missing all that he used to know ... nostalgia was what it was called.

And he was being doused with it.

Slowly, and without Cleo or little Kiesha seeing him Peter walked down the hall to the doctor's lounge.

Once inside he dialed a number he'd long ago thought he'd forgotten.

Now was the time to go back ... now was the time he needed his friends...


End file.
